A personality that was wilful and imperious. ibid.
Albert died at Windsor Castle – he was just forty-two. ibid.
Edward was a reluctant king ... He inherited less power than ever before. ibid.
George V didn’t have much public charisma. ibid.
Edward VIII: he was declaring himself unfit to rule. He wasn’t a monarch, he was just a man. ibid.
I’m going to meet the women at the top of the tree – at Charles II’s court. These women were intimately connected with the King. Dr Lucy Worsley, Harlots, Housewives and Heroines: A 17th Century History for Girls I: Act One: At Court
Women like Barbara [Charles II] were able to exploit his human weaknesses – she could hope to win as much power as any male government minister. A royal mistress like Barbara could take on the political establishment. ibid.
The mistress was embedded in the very heart of the court. ibid.
The rise of the career mistress brought with it endless intrigue. ibid.
On 29th May 1660 King Charles II returned from exile to reclaim his throne. Dr Lucy Worsley, Harlots, Housewives and Heroines: A 17th Century History for Girls II: Act Two: At Home
A woman was defined throughout her life by her marital status. ibid.
From 1694 there was a new tax on marriage – the government introduced stamp duty on every single ceremony. ibid.
The inns and pubs of Fleet Street, even the Fleet Prison itself, became venues for a shady phenomenon – the Fleet Marriage. ibid.
It could be highly dangerous for a woman to speak out in the seventeenth century. ibid.
This was the age of the professional housewife. ibid.
Hannah was one of the first women to earn a living from writing: The Cook’s Guide by Hannah Woolley; The Ladies’ Directory; The Ladies’ Delight; The Gentlewoman’s Companion or a Guide to the Female Sex. ibid.
Being labelled as a witch was a real danger. During the Civil War the country had just witnessed the largest witchhunt ever: between 1645 and 1647 over 250 women were investigated in East Anglia alone. ibid.
This obsession with female sexual pleasure sounds incredibly modern. ibid.
In the seventeenth century every family had to come to terms with the dangers and difficulties of childbirth. ibid.
The Midwife’s Oath ... Not to exercise any manner of Witchcraft, Charm, or Sorcery, Invocation … ibid.
By the end of the seventeenth century male doctors were pushing the midwife out of her traditional role. ibid.
The Monarchy was back in business. The Restoration was a turning point in British history – it marked the end of the medieval and the beginning of the modern age. Dr Lucy Worsley, Harlots, Housewives and Heroines: A 17th Century History for Girls III: Act Three: At Work and at Play
The lives of women in the late seventeenth century ... Some of them have such modern attitudes. ibid.
Nell Gwyn ... a mistress of Charles II. ibid.
Nearly 600,000 people now living in London, making it bigger than Paris. ibid.
Covent Garden built thirty years earlier became the home of London’s reopened theatres. ibid.
From China it was tea and porcelain. ibid.
For a growing number of women it wasn’t just a case of looking the part they had to act it too. For all the new freedoms that women enjoyed their behaviour was still very tightly prescribed. ibid.
The Gentlewoman’s Companion; Or, A Guide to the Female Sex: Containing Directions and Behaviour, in all Places, Companies, Relations, and Conditions, from their Child-hood down to Old Age: Viz. As, Children to Parents, Huswifes to the House … ibid.
Women’s knickers haven’t been invented yet. ibid.
Samuel Pepys, whose behaviour now seems pretty shocking ... Following women down the street and literally having a squeeze. ibid.
Rochester: he called it A Ramble in St James’s. He described the park of night teeming with men and women of all ranks, all of them up to no good ... Buggeries, rapes and incest. ibid.
Plagues, Dutch attacks on the fleet and the Great Fire of London were the consequences of this immoral age. ibid.
Once in jail the women were set to hard labour beating hemp. Members of the public could even come in and watch them, stripped to the waist and whipped. ibid.
The world of the Restoration playhouse. After eighteen years of closure under the Puritan regimes, theatres weren’t simply re-opened in 1660 they were totally reinvented. ibid.
The female roles must now be taken by women. Previously the girls had always been played by boys. The first generation of women to take to the public stage became stars. ibid.
When was Britain at its most elegant and most decadent, its most stylish and most radical? Dr Lucy Worsley, Elegance and Decadence 1/3: The Age of the Regency, BBC 2011
George really set the tone of the age and he was a notoriously extravagant character. ibid.
George grew increasingly wayward and resentful. ibid.
There was even an illegal marriage – to a Mrs Fitzherbert, a Catholic no less. ibid.
Amelia was the favourite of her father George III. ibid.
It was this sickly girl who was responsible for the birth of the Regency. ibid.
People called him [George IV] the Grand Entertainment. ibid.
The Regency was an age in which art and culture mattered. ibid.
As the Regency was getting started Napoleon was at the height of his powers. ibid.
A beautifully tied cravat was the most important part of the dandy’s uniform. ibid.
Syphilis was rife and would eventually claim [Beau] Brummell himself. ibid.
George meanwhile was left with a Bonaparte obsession from which he never really recovered. ibid.
Imagine Britain in the middle of the Napoleonic wars. We had been fighting the French for years. Napoleon tightens his grip on Europe. Dr Lucy Worsley, Elegance and Decadence 2/3: The Age of the Regency
In 1815 the final struggle: the Battle of Waterloo was a decisive victory over Napoleon. ibid.
There was an explosion of design: British style was lavish, theatrical, outrageous and brilliant. And at the heart of it all was George. ibid.
The Pavilion captures the craziness of Regency style; its clashing of cultures, its boldness. ibid.
It was the scene of a huge party: the [Waterloo] bridge was opened on 18th June 1817 ... It was described as one of the wonders of the age. ibid.
Sloan liked to talk about the poetry of architecture. ibid.
As well as Brighton Pavilion, Nash worked on the Regent’s official home in the heart of London – Carlton House. ibid.
The Times called the Waltz an indecent foreign dance. ibid.
Nash was always better at the big picture than the detail. ibid.
Buckingham Palace: Nash’s new obsession. ibid.
The surviving buildings of the Regency had proved to be the greatest legacy of the age. ibid.
When the nineteenth century dawned Britain was a land of two nations. A small wealthy class ruling a large and growing population. Dr Lucy Worsley, Elegance and Decadence 3/3: The Age of the Regency
The power of the word would now take over from the power of the sword. ibid.
Britain entered the modern machine age. ibid.
Steam power is one of history’s great leaps forward. ibid.
Byron thought this was outrageously repressive and he travelled south to London by coach to plead the cause of the weavers in his maiden speech in the House of Lords. ibid.
His [George] selfish and extravagant lifestyle had become a national disgrace. ibid.